


thats a hell of a mystery no one thought was a mystery and didnt even really need solving but damn if it didnt just get solved so nice work

by ApatheticRobots



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Autistic Character, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Gen, Hobbies, Multi, Origami, Unspecified Setting, sort of. its a bunch of short scenes that connect the overall plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApatheticRobots/pseuds/ApatheticRobots
Summary: Someone's been leaving paper cranes around the ship and Rodimus is really taking this whole thing a bit too seriously.
Relationships: Cyclonus/Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	thats a hell of a mystery no one thought was a mystery and didnt even really need solving but damn if it didnt just get solved so nice work

**Author's Note:**

> ship isnt the main focus of the story but its there and theyre dating so im including it anyways lol
> 
> unbeta'd. short little thing thats really just more character projection. making origami cranes is fun and a great stress reliever for me :)

Ultra Magnus could tell the instant he walked into his office that someone else had been there.

Given how precisely he organized his belongings, how clean he kept his space, he was able to pick out every little thing out of place. The jar of styluses he kept on the far right corner of the desk was a few centimeters to the side. The stack of datapads on the left side had been nudged. And on top of the datpad he’d left in the very center of the desk--

...What was _that?_

Absently putting everything back in its proper place as he walked around to stand behind the desk, he reached over and picked up the foreign object that had been set on top of his datapad.

It was small, enough that it was dwarfed by his hand. The material was strange-- it took him a moment to place it as _paper._ A piece of dark blue paper, crumpled up and placed in the center of his desk where it would clearly be seen. Was this some kind of practical joke? One of the rowdier members of the crew playing a prank on him? Were the riffraff on this ship really so desperate for entertainment that they thought it funny to leave garbage lying around his office? An attempt to get a rise out of him, no doubt, they _knew_ how much he hated litter.

As he curled his fingers to crush the paper further before disposing of it, something gave him pause.

There was something strange about the paper, something odd about the way it had been creased. It almost looked… intentional?

It wasn’t _crumpled,_ he realized, optics widening. It was _folded._ Meticulously so, in fact, with crisp clean edges and perfect measurements between plaits. Each crease was made precisely in a way that almost impressed him. Actually, scratch the almost, he _was_ impressed. He probably couldn’t have done a neater job himself.

He pinched one end of the paper object between two fingers, turning it around. It was a bird. Not an anatomically correct one, obviously, given that it was confined to a single piece of folded paper, but clearly supposed to mimic the image of one. 

He was significantly less angry now that he knew there wasn’t a practical joke being played on him and that someone hadn’t broken into his office to dump trash everywhere, but he was no less confused. Who had made this and left it here? _Why?_ Was it supposed to be some kind of bribe? An apology for misdemeanor, maybe? That idea was quickly brushed aside, though; if it had been left because someone wanted something from him they would have stated their name along with it.

The folded paper bird was set on the right side of his desk, next to the jar of styluses that was now back in its proper position. It didn’t really serve a purpose, but the creator had obviously put a lot of effort into making it look nice. It would be a shame to waste something so scrupulously constructed.

He hummed to himself a bit as he pulled his chair out to sit down and begin the day’s work. What an odd start to things.

* * *

Rodimus’s first thought upon seeing the spot of red on the captain’s chair was _scrap, my paint got scuffed._ Which was quickly replaced with _wait, when the hell did that happen?_ Followed by _wait that’s not paint_ in quick succession. Because it wasn’t-- it was… something else.

He crouched down and squinted at the little paper bird sitting on his chair in utter bewilderment.

It was… nice looking, he supposed. For a strange paper bird that he had no memory of being there the day before. It wasn’t _too_ strange finding weird things on the bridge, anyone could come and go as they pleased he supposed. The weird part was the fact that the bird had been placed very carefully in the exact center of the captain’s chair, where it would be very obvious to him when he walked in at the start of his shift.

“Is something the matter, Captain?” 

He glanced over at Ultra Magnus, standing there and looking at him with a disturbed look on his face. Ah. He probably _did_ look a bit like a nutcase, kneeling in front of the chair rather than sitting on it.

“Nah, everything’s fine, s’just…” he gestured at the bird. “Do you know who left this here?”

Ultra Magnus stared at it for a moment, expression turning curious. “So you received one as well?”

“I… guess? You got one?”

“Yes. It was left on my desk. I thought I’d check the security feed to see if I could figure out the culprit, but the feed had been disabled.” He leaned over Rodimus to peer at the paper. “It’s a very nice bird,” he said. “Mine was blue.”

Rodimus picked it up by one wing to look over it. The paper was red, with flame designs curling up the sides. Clearly designed with him in mind and not the other mech who occupied the captain’s chair when it was his shift. Though, Megatron was usually on shift when Rodimus wasn’t-- maybe he’d seen whoever had left it here? Had he himself been the responsible party?

He’d have to ask next time he ran into the big guy. For now, though, he simply set the bird down on the arm of the chair so he could take a seat.

It _was_ pretty cool looking, actually.

* * *

It was a little unfortunate how accustomed to walking in on a graffiti’d bar Swerve was. Like-- he probably should’ve been a little more upset whenever it happened, right? This was his gig, everyone clearly enjoyed the service and drinks he provided. But a lot of the time he’d still walk in to find paint or something all over the walls. If they didn’t want him doing his thing, they should stop providing him business. But he didn’t get mad, or close the bar down, he just steeled his plating and cleaned the mess and got to work as he always did.

The door was unlocked when he went to open it for the first time, which was enough of an indicator on its own, and he sighed heavily before pushing it open and bracing himself for whatever mess awaited him inside.

Except there wasn’t one. For a second he thought maybe he’d just missed it, like it was on the wall behind him or something instead, but nope. The chairs were all where he’d left them (set upside down on the tables so he could get to the floor), his glassware was all intact, none of the drinks were even stolen. Maybe he’d just forgotten to lock the door last night?

Then he spotted the thing on the counter. Blinked. Reset his optics in case he was seeing things. Blinked again.

“...What?” He said out loud.

It was… a crane. An origami crane, he’d seen videos of humans making them, where you take the paper and fold it up into funky shapes to make a thing. Made from red paper with little white stars all over it. Small, even by their standards, enough that he could balance it on the tip of his finger.

“What the scrap?” He said again, looking around as if waiting for someone to jump out and explain the joke. “Hello?”

No response. The bar was empty save for him.

And the crane.

He was used to practical jokes being played on him, used to being the butt end of jokes, but this was just… baffling. If it was supposed to be a prank he wasn’t getting it. 

The thought briefly crossed his mind that maybe it was _genuine,_ a _gift_ or something like that, but he scoffed at that. Would someone _really_ go through all the effort of breaking into his bar just to leave him a gift that would confuse more than flatter him?

Actually, knowing this crew, the answer to that was a solid maybe.

Well, whatever. He could think about the implications behind the incident later. He tucked the crane away in his subspace while he got to work on prepping the bar for opening.

* * *

A lot of strange things happened on the Lost Light. Enough _things_ that if a mech tried to solve every single one, they’d probably just end up driving themself insane. So a lot of the weird incidents were just ignored for the sake of not expending effort on something that wasn’t worth it. So long as no one got hurt, there was no reason to make it a big deal.

Rodimus was going _nuts_ trying to figure out the bird thing, though.

While a random appearance here and there wouldn’t have been worth freaking out over, since that first day where Rodimus and Magnus found their respective cranes, the sightings only got more and more frequent. Every day it seemed like someone new was noticing the crane on the arm of the captain’s chair (which had been joined by several other cranes with varying patterns at this point) and making a remark about receiving their _own_ personalized crane placed somewhere obvious among their belongings. Some had even noted finding them in their habsuites. And yet the security footage _never_ caught a single hint of who might be behind it.

After the incident where he was sitting at the bar lamenting about his inability to find the culprit and even _Swerve_ had pulled out his own bird to show Rodimus, he knew he had a task ahead of him. He _was_ going to figure out who was instigating this.

It was remarkably hard to find a trail, though. The culprit was never seen in action, apparently being skilled enough at sneaking around to avoid even active security cameras. Rodimus thought about singling out whoever hadn’t received one, but the issue with that train of thought was that nobody fit that bill. Literally every single individual on the ship had found a bird somewhere among their personal belongings. Some more than one, even. No one owned up to it. And, as much as he considered it to be the best possible way to figure it out, he couldn’t actually force every mech to fold a crane in front of him to prove it was/wasn’t them.

“Have you considered,” Megatron said, “just leaving it be? It’s not hurting anyone.”

“No, I want answers.”

The silver mech sighed. “You need to learn to pick your battles.”

“I pick all of them. Lemme see the bird you got!”

And so on.

He took to hiding around corners, waiting to jump out at people randomly to see if he could startle them into revealing themselves as the culprit. This yielded no results, unfortunately, and one of the times he scared Tailgate so badly that he made the minibot drop the stuff in his arms and scatter it around the hallway. That… made him feel a little guilty.

“Sorry,” he said, kneeling to help gather the stuff Tailgate had dropped. “Here, let me--”

“No, wait--”

He blinked as he stared down at what he’d just picked up. A square sheet of paper, white on one side, shiny silver on the other. The same material as the--

The paper was swiped out of his servo. Tailgate tucked it back into the stack he held, which was made up of _more_ paper in different colors and patterns, anxiously trying to escape the accusing look in Rodimus’s optics. 

“Sorry! Have to go,” he said, ducking under Rodimus’s outstretched arm and running off down the hallway. He disappeared around the corner.

Was _Tailgate_ the one leaving the cranes around? No, that would be ridiculous, the minibot couldn’t sneak around to save his life. He was probably one of the clumsiest mechs on board the ship. So then, did he know _who_ did? Was he bringing them more paper to fuel their habit? Scrap, Rodimus had totally just let go of an opportunity to grill Tailgate for answers. And now, if he was smart, Tailgate would be avoiding him like the plague so he didn’t have a chance to ask about who the papers were for.

He’d been so _close_ , damnit. He was going to figure out the truth one of these days.

* * *

Contrary to what most of the crew tended to believe, Ultra Magnus didn’t literally sleep in his office. He _did_ retire to his habsuite once his work was completed. And he didn’t usually go into the office until it was actually time for his shift to begin. Usually. Which definitely did not mean he never did. And it was a good thing that wasn’t a ‘never,’ too, because when he headed through the bridge to get to his office the door was wide open. He definitely hadn’t left it like that. Nor had he left the light on.

Which meant _someone_ had broken in.

Fury rose in his chassis, and he wasted no time stomping forward and slamming the door the rest of the way open with a loud “ _HEY!”_

Whirl spun around to face him, light of his optic a mere pinprick.

Of course it was Whirl-- how many times had Magnus reported him for insubordination of some kind? It came as no surprise that he was breaking into Magnus’s office. For what purpose, he couldn’t be sure, but once a criminal always a criminal.

“Get--” the ‘out’ went unsaid as Whirl scrambled to slip past him and dart out of the bridge, presumably going to find somewhere to hide for when Magnus figured out exactly what he’d been trying to steal. Magnus huffed, watching the blue mech disappear from view before ducking into his office to figure out what Whirl had been doing before he arrived.

His desk was in disarray, but that was probably owing to how suddenly Whirl had run away. His jar of styluses was knocked over, one of his datapads was about to fall, and to top it all off there was--

He froze.

A small folded paper bird in the middle of the desk. Patterned with blue swirls meant to mimic waves, folded just as carefully as it had been last time. The dots rapidly connected.

“Scrap,” he muttered in an uncharacteristically irked tone, picking up the craft. Jumping to conclusions had landed him in a very unfortunate position. He tucked the bird into his subspace and sighed, turning to head in the direction he’d seen Whirl run with intent to apologize.

The hallway brought him towards the crew quarters, and after briefly checking the database to see which room was Whirl’s, he cleared his vocalizer and knocked on the door.

...No response.

“Whirl?” He asked, keeping his voice lowered. “Are you there?”

No response again. Except-- he paused-- muffled speech from inside.

The door slid open. It wasn’t Whirl standing there, though, but Cyclonus, glaring Magnus down with narrowed optics. “What is it you require?” he asked, suspicion in his tone.

“I…” Magnus cleared his vocalizer again. This kind of personal conversation was never his forte. “I would like to apologize. Is… is Whirl available?”

Cyclonus stared him down for a moment longer, then stepped aside and gestured for Magnus to enter. He closed the door behind them.

The room was dark, with the only lighting coming from the gratuitous amount of alarm clocks stacked on a shelf to the side, as well as from the stars outside the window. As his optics adjusted Magnus could see the normal singular berth had been modified, two others pushed up next to it, and the reasoning became clear when Cyclonus walked past him and joined the other two mechs curled up there. He supposed he could allow the violation of room standards just this once.

Cyclonus took the empty spot at Whirl’s right, while the spot on his left was occupied by Tailgate, knelt beside the curled up mech and speaking softly with one arm curled around his shoulders. The arm tightened as Magnus walked over and stood across from the berth. He felt more than saw the glare directed at him from Tailgate’s direction.

“Whirl,” he said, wincing at how the mech in question tensed at his name being spoken, “I am sorry. I had not realized what you were doing, and was out of line with my overreaction. The fault lays solely on me.”

A single, blank yellow optic looked up at him. “You gonna tell anyone?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Keep your mouth shut. Especially if Rodimus is asking,” he said. Then a moment later; “it’s fine. You’re forgiven.”

Magnus nodded. Problem solved, crisis averted, etcetera. Personal talk was done, he could go back to work and forget this had ever happened. Which he was definitely going to do.

Except…  
  


“Do you think you could show me how it’s done?”

Whirl tilted his head. Ah-- Magnus knew that motion! It was a prompting for further elaboration on what he’d just said. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for correctly identifying a social cue and complied; “The birds. I am curious to see how they’re created. If you would not mind, of course, could you show me?”

“...Yeah, okay.” He looked over at Tailgate. “Pick a pattern for me?”

Tailgate nodded excitedly, all previous hostility towards Magnus forgotten as he clambered off the berth and ran over to the desk in the corner. He rifled through one of the drawers and emerged with a square of paper, black with shiny gold geometric patterns on it. Whirl took the paper and pulled his legs closer so he could use the flat surface of the berth as a workspace.

While Magnus would have assumed the lack of proper digits would’ve made the precise movements needed to fold the bird more difficult, Whirl’s claws actually seemed to give him a bit of an advantage. He was able to use the flat edge as a guideline. Which explained the preciseness of the folds on the birds Magnus would find. It was rather impressive, actually, how deliberate Whirl’s movements were. How in just a few quick creases he was able to turn a flat sheet into an artfully rendered bird. Magnus, with his blunt digits, could never hope to achieve such precision. Minimus maybe, but even then he’d have to use a ruler or something to help get the folds as perfect as Whirl was able to do on his own.

A minute passed in silence, and Whirl held up the black and gold bird, one wing pinched between his claws. Magnus reached out, and Whirl dropped it in his palm.

“It is very nice,” he said. “I enjoy how neat the creases are.” 

The compliment almost certainly sounded awkward, even to Magnus’s own audials, but Whirl seemed to understand the sincerity with which it was said. He glanced away and muttered a quiet “thanks.”

Magnus gave a decisive nod. “I once again apologize, for both my reaction and the intrusion. I will… be taking my leave.”

Tailgate gave him a cheerful wave as he turned to leave, Cyclonus a respectful nod, and Whirl just watched in silence. It was a little unnerving. But then he nodded as well, and Magnus could tell well enough that they were on decent terms. 

He closed the door behind him as he left the habsuite, examining the little paper bird still sitting in his palm. 

It really was quite nice to look at. He’d set it with the others on his desk.

**Author's Note:**

> for the record yes, it is actually possible to fold a crane without the use of all your fingers. difficult and i definitely gave myself a papercut, but possible. 
> 
> ultra magnus is autistic and you cant change my mind  
> actually everyone on the lost light is autistic :) because i am autistic and i say they are


End file.
